Developing a New Deluxe Sunflower Design

Deluxe Sunflower Test
 Basketweave Tip 48

One of my greatest challenges as an artist is keeping my work fresh, especially in terms of developing new product lines or new designs within existing product lines. I had started (unsuspectingly) developing the concept for my Deluxe Sunflower Series over 15 years ago but it was only in the past few years ago that I finally pulled them together into a coherent series of their own with consistent design and glaze parameters, finally putting together a collection of 15 different designs. These were pieces characterized by applied centers, either in the form of clay cut-outs, extruded clay or slip applied using a typical pastry bag and decorating tips.

Deluxe Sunflower Test
Chrysanthemum Tip 352

For 2015, I set myself the challenge of coming up with a new Deluxe Sunflower design and decided to focus on experimenting on some of the cake decorating tips I hadn't used. I had used a typical "Star" tip (including numbers 30, 31 and 32) for my very first experiment with this process, creating my "Cake" design for the series. (See post dated March 22, 2012.) I found I can use the same tip regardless of the sunflower's size (ranging from "Mini" to "Ginormous") by managing how much slip I squeeze out of the bag for each "star". Subsequently, I started working with "Round" tips (including numbers 5, 10 and 12) to create my "Bubbles" design. (See post dated April 28, 2011.) For these, I did find that working with smaller to larger tips for smaller to larger sunflowers was helpful. Finally, I created my "Ribbon" design using a "Basketweave" tip (number 48) for most of the design, finishing off the center using a Star tip. (See post dated September 4, 2012.)

Deluxe Sunflower Test
Ripple Tip 70

I had become fairly adept with the process (getting the slip consistency right, especially in terms of eliminating lumps; figuring out how to manage the bag - how full, tightening it as I went, etc.) but wanted to come up with some new ideas. I sorted through the box of tips I had collected and experimented a bit but felt I need more options - I wanted to have six new designs to compare and contrast. I researched decorating tips on-line and, finally, took myself off to the nearest Jo-Ann Fabric Shop to peruse their selection. I found a few additional tips based on my research, enough to develop six different designs.

Deluxe Sunflower Test
Rose Tip 104

In the interest of being as "scientific" as I could, I decided I would do all of the samples in the same size - Tiny - so they would be large enough to give a really good idea of how the finished texture would look for larger-sized sunflowers without investing an excessive amount of time, energy and materials in something that might not really turn out particularly well and I could make a one-to one comparison. I also used the same glaze for the petals on all of the samples - Amaco's Potter's Choice Frosted Melon - to "even the playing field". (The centers of all the Deluxe Sunflowers are done using the same glaze, Amaco's Potter's Choice Temmoku.) Firing them together - both bisque and glaze firings - would further ensure the pieces would be as consistent in every way other than the center motifs.

Deluxe Sunflower Test
Rosette Tip 107

All of the sunflowers were fabricated in the same way: A slab of clay is "humped" over the center mold, cut so it has about a half inch of "selvage" and the entire top surface scored; then I apply two rows of petals - one larger than the other, the larger first and the smaller on top, around the perimeter of the sunflower. After slipping the center, I filed in the decorative design using thick slip and a pastry bag with the appropriate tip.

Deluxe Sunflower Test
Ruffle Tip 67

I completed the six sunflowers, as seen here. (I've included both the names I used to distinguish the designs from one another as well as the numbers used for each tip by the manufacturer in each caption.)

"Chrysanthemum" was - by far - the most tedious design, as each petal was very small, requiring much more repetition. I used the same tip for "Basket" as I had used for "Ribbon" but wasn't particularly happy with its relative sloppiness - which made it more difficult to decipher visually. "Ruffle" and "Ripple" seemed pretty similar to me and neither was particularly interesting. I didn't feel "Rosette" adequately filled the center space - but I might return to it to see if I can do better in the future. I personally felt "Rose" was the most successful of the bunch. Once they were finished, I did an informal survey of folks in my circle, seeing what they felt worked best of the designs without conveying my assessments. Most folks agreed with me that the "Rose" design would be the best addition to the series.

Now I had to decide which glaze to use for the petals for the "Rose" design. Although I will use any glaze with any sunflower design (Deluxe or Fancy), for the purposes of "spec" production, I have developed a "recipe" for each design which includes the center motif and the glaze for the petals. (As stated before, the same glaze is always used for the centers - a dark brown that, when fired correctly, highlights the texture while maintaining a relatively neutral foil for the different petal glazes.) I had done some tests with some Coyote glazes and decided that Leopard Shino would be a great addition to the Deluxe Sunflower series. (I also, being a cat person, liked the name!) So, now we have a new addition to the Deluxe Sunflower Series - Rose!

Ginormous Deluxe Sunflower "Rose" with our Spokesmodel and Sales Manager, Doni.

Gerbera Daisies

After I "mastered" my Original Sunflowers and long before I even thought of making Fancy or Deluxe Sunflowers, I wanted to try my hand at making other types of flowers that could go on stakes. Daisies and daisy-like flowers immediately came to mind. Following the same routine I had developed with the sunflowers, I created templates for three sizes of daisy petals.

I had an interesting Shasta Daisy cultivar that seemed to be somewhat doubled, with two rows of petals. One of the challenges with all of these types of pieces is having it all hold together through the fabrication, drying and bisque-firing steps of the process. The pieces of clay used to make the petals are so small that they need all the help they can get to "hold it together." The most difficult step was transferring the bone dry pieces to the kiln shelf for bisque firing.

I started out by making the flange - the portion of the clay used to make the center of the flower that extends beyond the edge of the underlying mold - very wide to support the petals applied on top of it. I also used at least two rows of graduated petals to provide additional bracing. These two steps helped but I still experienced a lot of product loss attributable to the greenware loading phase.

Eventually, I figured out that, if I loaded the pieces onto the shelves right after I have finished fabricating them - pulled them off the molds when still only leather hard (or even sooner), put in the holes for a quarter-inch post and for a wire for hanging, made other final touches and signed the pieces, I load them directly onto the shelves right there an then. I have learned that I can actually load right side up and upside down, as long as I'm very careful. Because the pieces are not yet dry, they are less brittle and more able to accommodate. The only trick is to not try to load the full shelves right down to the bottom of the kiln: they are very heavy and the petals usually extend slightly beyond the edge of the shelf, so it's better to have loaded other work for the first two to three levels in the kiln. Through this technique, I have been able to reduce my loss in this phase of the process to less than five percent. (Losses later in the process have always been negligible.)

Baby Daisy

The pieces are very similar to the sunflowers in construction. Using White Stoneware for Daisies and Gerbera Daisies and Peach Stoneware for Black-eyed Susans, a textured slab of clay (I initially used the waffle-textured foil lid found on cans of peanuts and mixed nuts, but those didn't hold up very well over time and so switched to burlap to give the sense of the disk flowers in the center of each blossom) is slumped over a mold made from a small bowl. The slab is cut so a quarter- to a half-inch clay flange extends beyond  the edge of the mold, which is scored and slipped. Petals are applied (the bases of the petals are actually folded over to provide more support and adhering surface area) around the flower's center.

What is different about the these pieces is that, once I've applied each row of petals and patted each into place securely, using my nitrile-gloved thumb or a soft wooden tool, I score a mid-rib on each petal, a small detail that really adds some sorely-needed dimension to the pieces after they are stained or glazed. I the apply the additional row(s) of petals (there are a total of two rows for Baby Daisies and Regular Daisies; Deluxe Daisies have three rows of graduated petals), scoring each row of petals as I did the first. Then, I "roll" the tips of pairs of petals toward one another to create an undulating sense of movement for the entire piece.

Regular Gerbera Daisy

My final touch is to roll, twist or bend three random petals on each piece (one on the Baby Daisies). Previously, I had accidentally twisted a petal in a Deluxe Black-eyed Susan when fabricating it and a customer specifically chose that piece because of this "mistake", so I've now included that in the "recipe" for my Daisies, Black-eyed Susans and Gerbera Daisies. Once the pieces are leather hard, I finish them as described above, load them onto kiln shelves and let them dry completely. (Sometimes I'll load them into the kiln before they're bone dry but "soak" them to 225 degrees F before firing to Cone 06.)

Glazing for the Gerbera Daisies consists of brushing Titanium Mason Stain solution on the center and pulling off the excess, once dry with a damp sponge to bring up the texture. Sometimes I wax the center but not always - if you have a steady hand, you won't need to do so. I apply two coats of Amaco's Celebration Series glazes to the top side of the petals, being careful to work it into the areas between petals and around petals that have been twisted or rolled. One coat is applied to the underside. (I usually alternate, applying the first coat to the top, then flipping the piece over and glazing the bottom; by the time I'm done what that, the top is usually dry enough to reglaze). I pop the piece on a three-inch kiln post to dry completely before taking them out to the kiln to load. (Note: The Lilac and Burgundy in this glaze series seem to need three coats to get adequate coverage.) I load the pieces on stilts and fire to Cone 6.

Deluxe Gerbera Daisy

Once cooled, I make sure the holes for the quarter-inch post are the right size; if not, they are easily corrected with a Dremel and diamone bit. I add a piece of plastic-coated picture wire and they're ready for use, indoor or out, on a post or just to hang.

The Gerbera Daisies come in three sizes (Baby, Regular and Deluxe) and 21 colors - all 20 colors from the Amaco Celebration Series plus my own proprietary "Gerbera Daisy Pink" I developed some years ago using a mixture of two glazes from that series plus one from their Sahara High Fire Series. The pieces are weather proof and can stay outside here in Michigan all year long.

Poppies

Small, Medium and Large Poppies in Pink,
Burgundy and Scarlet Red (respectively)

When I first started gardening on my own property (a glorified word for my typical 40 x 120 urban lot on the eat side of Detroit) 17 years ago - before I discovered the beauty and variety of native plants, like many people I worked with a lot of the same types of plants I had seen my parents grow in their gardens. Most traditional garden plants used in the United States are what are referred to as "exotics", meaning they weren't living in a given location as of October 11, 1492, when the European invasion began.

My garden was filled with German, Siberian, Dutch and Japanese Iris; Daylilies (yes there was a time I grew Daylilies), Oriental Lilies, Asiatic Lilies and Toad Lilies; Hosta, Herbaceous Peonies and Hollyhocks; and literally dozens of varieties of Clematis. One of my favorites were the Oriental Poppies, which came in colors ranging from brightest white through pale pink, fuschia, raspberry, scarlet, burgundy and hot oranges. I found their transience - each flower lasts only one day - and fragility - their petals are sheerest crepe - exquisite and marveled at the fact that their stems were never, ever, straight, rather bending in the most interesting contortions from the basal rosette up to the exquisite bloom. The seed heads were fascinating. Although the plants would go through a particularly ugly period after flowering, becoming ragged and dried, finally requiring a good cleaning-out mid-season, I always enjoyed their resilient and reliable performance.

I decided to try to make clay poppies. The first one could have been used as a blunt instrument (if you know what I mean); it had to weigh at least a pound - not at all representative of the fragile beauty I was attempting to capture. But I kept working at it and finally came up with a workable solution.

I started out making a plaster cast of the underside of a plastic tray my Aunt Nancy (also my godmother) had given me for Christmas one year. (This same tray is the means of transportation of most of my work to and from the kilns in the garage.) The underside of this molded plastic tray has a random striped pattern reminiscent of the pleating of poppy petals. I created a template for the individual petal and then replicated it four times into a circular form with four petals radiating from the center, to maximize production. Having decided that my poppies would need five petals to look sufficiently "poppy-like"and that I wanted to be able to put them on stems, I started production.

I roll out a relatively thin slab of clay and cut out the required petals. Each petal is "slapped" rather hard onto the plaster tray mold twice, once for each side, to impress with the petal texture. I arrange five petals in a bowl form, scoring, slipping and smoothing them together at the center and then scoring, slipping and attaching them to one another in various ways at their adjacent edges to create the flower form. In the most successful designs, I score and slip the petals at their adjoining underside edges and pinched together. Using a round Kemper Klay Kutter (at least 1/2" in diameter), I make a hole in the center. The petal portion of the poppy is complete. Now to create the flower's center!

Creating the center of the Poppy has been one of my more challenging occupations in the studio - and I'm not sure I'm done with the process. Right now, I make a clay cylinder around a piece of 1/2" copper tubing and cut it into approximately 1" sections. I apply a slab "top" to each section and incise, using my thumbnail, with five curves radiating from the center to the outside edge. Then I score and slip the upper half of the outside of the cylinder and apply extruded clay (using my handy, dandy Kemper Klay Gun) for the flower's stamens. This is set in each flower with a piece of newsprint between so they will not stick together. Once dry, I remove the flowers from their bowl forms and bisque fire.


To glaze, I apply two coats of Amaco Sahara HF-1 Black as eyespots to each of the five petals; once dry, these are brushed with wax resist. I then apply two (most colors) to three (Lilac and Burgundy) coats of Amaco's Celebration series mid-temperature glazes to the tops of the petals and one to two coats on the underside. (I generally use poppy or poppy-like colors, including Pink, Scarlet Red, Burgundy, Orangerie, Bright Yellow, Clementine, Lilac, Amethyst my own proprietary Gerbera Daisy Pink and Baby Blue to mimic the Himalayan Blue Poppy.) Separately, I coat the flower's center with HF-1 Black and prop it to dry, then place it over the center hole on one of the flowers. The pieces are then fired together.

These pieces can be displayed as a sculpture - I like the idea of "floating" the flowers in a glass bowl with some glass gems - or attached to a stem. I use refrigerator tubing (for the flexibility) cut to 18 inches and bend it around a bit to give that "real poppy stem" look. I use a pipe expander at the end that will go into the flower's base, filling the reservoir with epoxy before doing so and allowing to harden. Although these pieces probably should not be left outside in the winter (the epoxy does break down over extended exposure to the weather), they make a lovely addition to your garden, allowing you to have the earliest, longest-lasting poppies in your neighborhood!